


He Says He Is An Oceanographer

by ErinPtah



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Alternate Universe - The Little Mermaid, Community: longfic_bingo, Fish Puns, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Merpeople, SCIENCE!, True Love's Kiss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-25
Updated: 2013-09-13
Packaged: 2017-12-24 15:44:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 20,961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/941704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ErinPtah/pseuds/ErinPtah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU. Carlos and his team are studying the most scientifically interesting patch of ocean along the U.S. coastline. In the process, a certain member of the ocean community (with a beautiful, soothing Voice) starts to take an interest in him too.</p><p>Featuring fairytale romance, the music of the sea, chemistry of all kinds, and, well, puns. Lots and lots of puns.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

If you see something floating through our fair waters that looks somewhat like a jellyfish, but does not move in a healthy manner nor respond to municipally-approved greetings, this is likely a plastic bag. Plastic bags, a form of waste produced by humans (like our awful, awful nearest neighbors, Ocean Bluffs), can be a dangerous choking hazard, especially to young children.

Protect your children by telling them about the dangers of plastic bags, and by, every so often, sacrificing a young sea turtle on the altar we all have in our kitchens. About once every full moon is recommended. If you absolutely can't get turtle, a middle-aged marine iguana will do instead...but don't tell the City Council I told you that!

This has been Community Health Tips.

 

~~~

 

A cool breeze wafted over the little boat, bobbing steadily in an ocean as calm as a bathtub, while Carlos checked the readings on the first sample of seawater.

Then he checked them again.

Then he called, "Kendra, did you let any of your interns tamper with the machines?"

"No, why?"

"Because everything's coming up sixes."

Kendra, his fellow oceanographer, left the sonar equipment behind and came over to join him. "That's a gambling expression, right?" she began, but did a double-take when she saw the readouts. "Oh. You mean everything's literally coming up sixes."

"Which is not only improbable," said Carlos, staring at the rows of identical digits on his screen, "the oxygen levels alone mean that everything for a couple of miles should be dead. No fish, no plant life, nothing."

An iridescent teal and yellow fish chose that moment to leap out of the water right next to their hull. Carlos only saw it out of the corner of his vision; he assumed that if he got a chance to examine it more closely, it would turn out to have the normal number of eyes after all.

"We'll just have to recalibrate everything when we get back in the lab," he decided. "How's it coming with the sonar?"

 

~~~

 

Several listeners have called in to report seeing mysterious lights in the depths of Radon Trench.

We would like to remind everyone that, as Radon Trench extends an unknown number of thousands of feet below the sea bed, it is entirely possible for it to be populated with deep-sea organisms whose own bioluminescence is the only source of light they know. Oh, how they must envy us, basking in what sunlight manages to filter down to our little community, luxuriating in the excess of easy photosynthesis! What tales of resentment they must tell, huddling around the thermal vents that are their only paltry source of warmth!

Well, listeners, we can content ourselves with the knowledge that our bitter trench-dwelling neighbors can never rise up into the photic zone and invade us, as their bodies, adapted to withstanding much greater pressure, would explode under the lack of strain.

Also, the Great Old One does not allow them to leave.

_Cthulu fhtagn!_

 

~~~

 

"Carlos? Can I borrow you for a second?" called a voice from inside the cabin.

"Sure thing, Alex," said Carlos, who needed a break from the fact that today, his readings were unfailingly coming up as zero. Ocean water made up of zero percent everything. That shouldn't be permitting the survival of marine life _or_ keeping them afloat. "What's going on?"

Alex had a map of the area spread out on the main desk, the coastline traced in brown along the top, various underwater features marked off in blue. All their data was recorded in the computer system, but it was nice to have a physical map around sometimes, to work out your thoughts on. "Here's our present location, okay?" he said, marking an X with a charcoal pencil. "And here, roughly, is the pattern of currents suggested by the data."

Carlos nodded. "With you so far."

"Here's where we took readings yesterday." Alex added a new X, sketched in more light curves. "And the currents from there." A large arc was starting to develop. "And here's the data from Tuesday...."

The arc curved around on itself. That wasn't so unusual; they were in a gulf, any currents forced to bump up against a big curve of land. But the more data Alex added, the more Carlos's brows started to furrow. "You think this whole area of water is flowing in...a circle?"

"Not just that," said Alex. "It's behaving exactly like a slow-motion version of the way water spirals down a bathtub drain. You can double-check the fluid dynamics. In fact, please double-check the fluid dynamics, because I really want to know what I got wrong."

"It can't be the area's natural pattern," agreed Carlos. For one thing, where would the ocean be draining _to?_ "But you might not be wrong. Some kind of human intervention, maybe drilling...I know Strexcorp had a couple of rigs out here last year. We'll look into the city records when we get back, okay?"

Before Alex could answer, there was a scream from outside. Both scientists dashed out onto the deck just in time to see Kendra shake a plastic bag from her hand, the wind catching it and tossing it onto the water's surface.

"Kendra!" exclaimed Carlos. "Littering?"

"It wasn't ours!" said Kendra quickly. "I fished it out of the water — it floated on by, so I figured, why not clean it up — but I must've gotten a crab or something with it." She winced, rubbing the fingers of one gloved hand. "It _pinched_."

 

~~~

 

The Sheriff's secret police have traced the source of the unauthorized audio broadcasts that interrupted many peaceful community events yesterday evening.

Normally such broadcasts turn out to be the songs of passing whale pods calling to their young ones. Of course, no long-distance audio broadcasts are permitted within the city limits except for the approved songs of yours truly, but most whale species get a pass on this, as they are generally too large to fit in the Sheriff's secret re-education facilities.

This one, however, was different. Instead of soothing information about the climate and hospitality of other towns along the course of the whales' great and inspiring migrations, or old folk songs passed down to the children from generation to hopefully-not-doomed generation, this broadcast was a series of warnings not to trust the government, and in particular, not to eat any of the krill this week.

Well, listeners, you probably won't be surprised to hear that the singer was none other than local merman Steve Cuttlesberg! What a jerk, am I right? I hope you enjoy your re-education, _Steve_.

Stay tuned for a selection of favorite krill recipes. Try one tonight!

 

~~~

 

"But it's there," said Carlos, leaning over the side of the boat and squinting down into the water. (His hair was long enough to fall into his eyes when he did this. Either he had to hold out until it was long enough to pull back into a ponytail, or bite the bullet and get a trim.) "I can see it. Right there."

"So can I," said Alex, next to him. "That is definitely a reef. Just because it isn't on our map...."

"It definitely _looks_ like a reef," said Kendra. "According to sonar, it's no such thing. There's nothing there except ocean floor, and maybe a couple of eels."

"Something must be going wrong with the sonar too," decided Alex. "We'll have to recalibrate it just like we did the chemical readings."

Carlos didn't point out that, while they had convinced the machine not to display identical digits for everything, it was now unfailingly turning up every number as 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, or 42.

"There's an easier way to figure this out," said Kendra. "Someone could suit up and go down to the reef to check."

The three scientists all looked at each other.

"You're the one who thinks it's not real," Alex told her. "You should go. Examine the evidence for yourself."

"You're the one who thinks it _is_ real," Kendra shot back. "If it's perfectly normal down there, why are you so eager to volunteer someone else?"

"If you don't trust my perception when I say it's real now, why would you trust it just because I got closer?"

"Carlos, what do you think?" asked Kendra. "You're the leader of this expedition. You can choose."

"Um," said Carlos.

"Or, if you trust Carlos so much, _he_ can go," suggested Alex.

"I don't think...."

"That sounds fair," said Kendra.

"You just said I could choose!"

"Only because it was a tie! You wouldn't abuse your authority to override a democratically chosen majority, would you?"

For once, Carlos found himself wishing that numbers and math would _stop_ working correctly.

 

~~~

 

A new person came into town today. A human.

Who is he? What does he want with us?

His boat, you may have noticed, has been sailing out regularly to take up different positions floating above our community for some time now. Of course, in accordance with City Ordinance 24601, no mer-humanoid citizens have been permitted to approach or be seen by the intruders, so I have not been able to gather much information firsthand. But Old Merwoman Josie, down by the reef, reported that her angelfish friends have kept many close eyes on him.

His friends, Old Merwoman Josie informed me, address him as Carlos. They all have lots of scientific equipment. What is it for? Why bring it here? Why now?

I fear for Carlos. I fear for our community. I fear for anyone who has not yet had their mandatory weekly meal at Big Ray's Sushi.

No one does a roll like Big Ray.

_No one._

 

~~~

 

Twenty feet down, Carlos could feel the chill of the water even through the well-padded neoprene of his wetsuit. He took a deep breath, sighed a stream of bubbles out of the end of his snorkel, and kicked his way over to the reef.

A shoal of tiny green-and-yellow fish scattered as he approached. Behind and below them, vertically-growing plants waved with green ladders of floating leaves, blue fernlike structures rustled, steady fans of coral spread out in soft arcs of red and pink from the main body of the reef. Carlos swam alongside the structure for a minute, watching plants rustle and anemones wave their tiny tentacles in the current.

"It's beautiful down here," he reported into his radio, knowing it was all being recorded up on deck. "It's...well, it's a little eerie, too. I know it's just the current, but every time I look at a different patch of plant fronds or anemone feelers it looks like they're all pointing right at me. Funny the tricks the mind can play on you sometimes, huh?"

The observer effect was real, of course, but so was the effect where you assume you have more influence on events than you really do. As a scientist, you had to be on guard for all kinds of biases.

"The fish keep scattering when I get near," he continued. "Some of them have probably never seen a human before, poor little guys. I'm getting photos of the ones I can...and plenty of shots of the rock, too. And the plants. And the polyps."

Swimming a little further on, he cast his eyes, and his camera, downward...and spotted a few tentacles, dark and purplish, extending out from under an outcrop at least thirty feet below.

"I think I've got an octopus!" he exclaimed. "Most of its body is concealed, but it looks like it might be larger than anything native to the area."

"It isn't anywhere near you, is it?" asked Alex's voice in his earpiece, crackling with static. "Curious octopi have been known to 'borrow' researchers' equipment."

"I'm keeping my distance, don't worry," said Carlos, snapping more pictures.

"Have you touched the reef yet?" put in Kendra's voice. "Is it physically there?"

You weren't supposed to disturb reef ecology by sticking your hands in it, but considering what he was down here to investigate, Carlos figured it was essential to check. He tapped his knuckles against a few pieces of bare rock, ran his gloved fingers along the surface of a piece of brain coral.

"Feels real to me," he reported. "Although this coral is unusually smooth for its species...but it's definitely touchable, and that's the important thing, right?"

 

~~~

 

Listeners! Oh, listeners! What a day I have had!

I went down to the reef where that new oceanographer, Carlos, was investigating. My actions were not in defiance of the City Council's orders, mind you, because I kept very well hidden, and although he took a few photographs in my direction, that shouldn't be a problem, because I don't currently resolve on film.

The point is, listeners...when he ascended out of our sweet depths to the dry and unforgiving air above...I followed.

There was a convenient series of rocky formations not far from where the boat with all the science equipment was anchored, so I clambered up the far side of one of those and looked cautiously over, revealing only the top of my head, which I am told can pass for human at a moderate distance. From there I was able to watch as the other scientists hoisted Carlos up onto the deck of their craft, took some of the science-y gadgets he had brought down, and helped him get out of his diving costume!

But Seacil, you might be saying, what's so special about that? He looked like a normal human underneath it, didn't he?

Well, yes. In a sense. In the sense that everything about him was perfect.

When he removed his mask, Carlos was revealed to have dark and delicate skin, a square jaw, and teeth like a limestone cliff. He spoke to his fellow scientists with a tone of knowledge, the certain knowledge of one who does science, and yet also wonder, the inevitable wonder of one who has more science left to do. And then...he removed his hood.

Listeners, it turns out that brilliant Carlos — wonderful Carlos — handsome Carlos — was blessed with _perfect_ hair.

And I fell in love instantly.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oceanographer Carlos is going through teammates at an annoyingly fast rate, but he can't help being drawn back to the weird, weird sea. Which is good, because it misses him when he's gone. And he's on the verge of figuring that out.

A brief update on the strange, multicolored bloom of algae that has completely eclipsed the sun over our little town. John Peters (you know, the flatfish?) called in to let me know that it has begun dropping small creatures down through the water. Starfish, anchovies, the occasional sea turtle, at least one otter. Most of them would be able to swim away unharmed, except that they all appear to be dead, so they can do nothing but fall to the sea floor.

On second thought, 'dropping' is probably a misleading term. It implies that these bodies are being gently released into the water, to drift downward, buoyant, gently bobbing with the undersea currents, until they come to their eventual resting place. The Glow Bloom is really more 'spewing' small creatures. Or perhaps 'firing'.

The point is, be careful on your commute today!

Several members of the Sheriff's secret police, specifically those members with sturdy carapaces, have tried to ask the Glow Bloom questions, swimming up as close to it as they can get before choking on deadly, anoxic water that is reported to taste like vanilla. So far, the Glow Bloom has not answered.

THE GLOW BLOOM DOES NOT NEED TO CONVERSE WITH US. IT HAS NO NEED FOR PUNY MARINE COMMUNICATION. THE GLOW BLOOM SIMPLY IS.

ALL HAIL THE MIGHTY GLOW BLOOM.

_ALL HAIL._

 

~~~

 

Carlos knocked back another gulp of coffee and gazed out his window. The sky over Ocean Bluffs was dark and forbidding, and the radio had warned this morning that it wasn't safe to take a boat out, but he couldn't help missing it anyway.

He missed his original team, too. They had gone down to the Ocean Bluffs archives to look up the history of Strexcorp drilling, and the next thing Carlos knew he had gotten emails from both Kendra and Alex announcing they had given up on finding meaningful results in this area and were moving on. When he contacted the university back home to complain, they just sent him a dozen applications and told him to take his pick of replacements.

The new team he had settled on, Gwen and Rashid, were currently assigned to re-testing Carlos' water samples. Not because he thought they would find anything new, but because they might as well get used to the fact that nothing from the local marine ecology made sense.

And Carlos himself had been going over Kendra's sonar data for hours, with no results except a headache.

As soon as it was a reasonable hour for a lunch break, Carlos fled the rented lab and took a walk in the gloomy weather. He didn't aim for anywhere in particular, although he wouldn't have minded stumbling on a restaurant that wasn't filled with the smell of rotting fish. That odor was so hard to get out of lab coats.

It shouldn't have been a surprise that his feet carried him down to the docks.

Most of his underwater pictures kept coming out badly, but the sheer entertainment of diving meant he always looked forward to going back in. If scientific analysis was a constant struggle in this region, scientific observation was as easy and enjoyable as ever. And there was so very much still to be observed.

For example: the red tide currently washing in along a broad swath of the shoreline.

Carlos took a stroll along the white sand, as far back as possible from the line of foam traced by the farthest reaches of waves. Not all red algal blooms were dangerous, but this one clearly was, to judge by the bodies that lined the shore: a four-foot smooth-hound shark, an olive ridley sea turtle, a couple of mackerels, some smaller fish that he'd have to get closer to identify.

The National Ocean Service would have to be notified. Carlos followed their updates religiously, and, in a worrying oversight, they hadn't mentioned anything about harmful algal blooms in this area. An unwarned local population could be in a lot of danger.

At the same time, part of him was relieved to have _some_ evidence that the water was hazardous. If the proportion of oxygen was going to keep coming up as zero, the fish had no right to look so healthy. Good to see a few of them display a normal reaction to deadly hypoxic conditions.

...If it was algae-related hypoxic conditions that had killed them. He would have to go back to the lab, pick up the necessary equipment to collect a specimen safely.

On his way back towards town, Carlos turned to get one more look at the tide. The hues of the algae involved were dispersed in patches, some a rusty red, some more pinkish, some almost purple...and some....

He shook his head to clear it. When he looked again, the colors were within the normal range of algae, and certainly within the normal range of the light spectrum visible to humans. The dimness must have been playing tricks on his eyes.

For some reason, in spite of all the cautionary evidence, he didn't worry for a minute about the sea creatures out by the trench and the reef. As if he was already sure they would be fine.

 

~~~

 

Sorry about that, listeners! I seem to have blacked out for, or at least lost my memories of, the past few minutes. Or maybe a few hours. It's hard to tell, being as how time is an illusion created by the government and all.

I would ask Intern Shelly, but she is nowhere to be found. If anyone runs across a lost, disoriented, and/or unconscious smooth-hound shark wearing public broadcasting ID tags, please direct her gently back to this grotto.

In any case, the Glow Bloom appears to have moved on, leaving nothing but several hundred animal corpses behind. And, now that it's gone, you know, I sort of miss it. Sure, we had to dodge missiles of dead flesh being spat at us from the surface, and they have left a trail of destruction in their wake, but the colors were pretty, weren't they? Whereas the sky above the surface is grey and cloudy today, making everything down here feel grey and cloudy too.

Or maybe that's just because Carlos hasn't visited today.

Carlos! Sweet Carlos! What could be keeping him? Listeners, if you have any news, any news at all, I implore you: please, whisper it into the potted kelp that mysteriously appeared in your living room even though no one can remember buying it. The Sheriff's secret police will hear you, and, if they have any hearts nestled within their stony carapaces, pass the word on.

 

~~~

 

"I'm telling you, Carlos, I don't know how your pictures could have come out so badly," said Gwen's voice over the radio, this time with her in the depths and Carlos listening topside. "This is beautiful, clear water. Maybe you've had trouble with the camera settings."

"Maybe," said Carlos distractedly. "The fish are okay, though, right?"

"All the fish I've seen are fine," Gwen assured him. "The plants and anemones look perfectly healthy too."

"What about an octopus? Any sign of that?" Not that Carlos had any logical reason to worry about the octopus in particular. It was an offhand question, nothing more.

"No octopus. Sorry. Although...ooh, you guys are going to love this. I think I see a couple of seals!"

An electric shock ran through Carlos. "Seals? Get pictures. Can you identify the species?" Once upon a time, the Caribbean Monk Seal had been native to this area...but the last recorded sighting of one was in 1952, and a few years go they had been officially declared extinct. What a find it would be if they discovered a live one!

"Unsure," said Gwen. The static crackled even more thickly around her words. "Can't get [...] scale from here. Dark head, spotted pelt, [...] with dark patches [...] growth, on the head, similar [...] hooded seal [...]"

"Did she say hooded seal?" echoed Rashid, whose own research concentrated on marine biology. "That can't be right. Those are native to the Arctic."

Carlos nodded. What if they had a genuinely new species on their hands? "Gwen, you're breaking up. Can you confirm if you have photos? Photos of these mysterious hooded seals, yes or no?"

Nothing but static answered him.

"We're bringing her up," decided Carlos. Rashid's hands were on the winch almost before the words were out of his mouth. Together they hauled Gwen back to the surface, and hoisted what turned out to be her unconscious body up onto the rear deck.

"She has a pulse," reported Carlos to a terrified Rashid as they got the breathing apparatus out of Gwen's mouth. "And she's breathing. C'mon, Gwen, snap out of it...."

Rashid detached the camera from its harness, the better to get it out of her way. At last Gwen stirred, eyes fluttering. "Eh? Why am I back up here?"

Carlos breathed a sigh of relief. "We lost contact, so we pulled you up. What happened after you saw the hooded seals?"

"Hooded seals?" Gwen furrowed her brow at him. "Couldn't be...those are Arctic...."

"Maybe you got something on the camera," said Rashid in a weak, hopeful voice. "Maybe we can figure it out from that."

The camera chose this moment to spark, fizzle, and have its insides shaken by a small bang that left it spewing thick black smoke.

"Or maybe not," said Rashid.

"Well, at least now we know why the pictures weren't coming out well," said Carlos, trying to put a bright spin on things. "After we recheck all the settings on the breathing apparatus, we'll go into town and buy another camera."

 

~~~

 

It is with a heavy heart that I inform you that Intern Dory has met her demise.

We all know, because we are good citizens who do what is best for our community, that Dogfish Cove is forbidden: to dogfish, and to all other forms of marine life. We do not approach Dogfish Cove. We do not think about Dogfish Cove. And we especially do not think about the hooded seals who are its only inhabitants.

Sadly, our scientist friends — who have returned! — are newcomers, outsiders, and while this is wonderful — especially for Carlos — perfect Carlos! — they have not had the benefit of a good re-education.

So when they parked their boat dangerously close to the mouth of Dogfish Cove, I naturally sent Intern Dory out to keep an eye on things. Not to break the Statute of Secrecy, oh no! But maybe, if our beloved strangers ventured too close to the hooded seals, she could find a way to subtly nudge them in the other direction.

Sure enough, according to Old Merwoman Josie, one of the scientists — but not Carlos, HAIL AND THANKS TO THE GLOW BLOOM — got too close to things we are not allowed to think about. Josie reports that the angelfish saw this scientist lose consciousness, and, before the seals could descend, the angelfish witnessed Dory engaged in a heroic display of defense against their awesome and unknowable powers.

The last reported news we have of Dory involves her disappearing into the mouth of Dogfish Cove, which means she will never be seen again, and is almost certainly dead already. All of us honor her bravery and her sacrifice.

 

~~~

 

"I don't think we should risk it, Carlos," said Rashid. "The sky doesn't look too good."

"It only looks weird because you expected sunrise to have passed an hour and a half ago," said Carlos stubbornly. His equipment was all packed, he was standing at the front door, and the only thing keeping him from getting to the boat was his teammates. "Look, the radio said the weather was going to be fine today. Don't you trust the radio?"

"I don't know what to trust in this town!" exclaimed Gwen. "Nothing we've seen or recorded has made sense for weeks now! We get seismic ratings that would only make sense if the boat were floating over an active undersea volcano, the tides go in and out at random times, I can't find anything at the grocery store that isn't coated in a thin film of something sticky...I wouldn't go diving out there again in the most perfect weather in the world."

"And I wouldn't ask you to go diving," Carlos assured her. True, accidents could happen anywhere, not just off the coast of Ocean Bluffs...but when someone had been through a nerve-wracking incident the way Gwen had, you had to give them some leeway for irrational and unscientific fears. "I'm just asking you to be ready to pull me up if something happens while _I_ go diving."

"Well, you're not going out there with us today," said Rashid. "And you can't possibly be crazy enough to go diving on your own."

Carlos admitted that no, he wasn't.

But he had to stop and think about it.

 

~~~

 

Here's something odd, listeners: there is a catfish trapped next to the entrance to the broadcasting grotto.

He has no tangible physical restraints. To all appearances, he is simply floating in place, as all ordinary catfish do. The trouble turns up when you try to move him, perhaps to gently nudge him to the side so you don't inadvertently knock him in the face with one of your tentacles as you go in. He is totally fixed in place, solid as a spur of rock protruding from the sea bed.

I'll admit, I've never been much of a catfish person, but this one is just so cute. The way he twitches his little whiskers at you! And since he can't move anyway, I figure we might as well make him an unofficial station mascot. It would certainly be nice if we could get some food for him classified as a business expense.

Since we are between interns right now, I had to settle on a name all on my own. After some thought, I've decided to call him Koishekh. It has a ring to it, don't you think?

By the way, if you would like to apply to be an intern...don't. If you are to be the one, you will be summoned at the appropriate time.

And on that note, let's go to....[the weather](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQUP6xD7E6E).

 

~~~

 

The day Gwen left, hinting that she was disillusioned with geological oceanography entirely and was planning on designing her next research project to take place in a desert, Carlos went out on the boat again.

No one else had come along, which wasn't best practice, safety-wise, but Rashid had a fish to finish dissecting and Carlos didn't want to drag him away from it. Besides, someone had to sign for the equipment delivery they were expecting from Strexcorp in the afternoon.

So Rashid agreed to stay behind, after Carlos swore up and down that he would keep his feet planted safely on deck.

Today the water tests came back as acidic. Impossibly acidic. So much so that the fluid should have been eating through the hull of the boat. Since the hull appeared to be fine, as did the fish and plants near enough to the surface for Carlos to see, he risked lowering a fairly expensive hydrophone down there anyway. A stream of normal undersea audio came pumping up through the speakers.

He slapped on a pair of headphones and ran numbers to the sound of underwater tides and whalesong.

The clicks and whistles and long, haunting notes were downright soothing. For once, though Carlos was getting physically impossible data trying to make Gwen's seismic readings match up with Alex's fluid dynamics, it wasn't killing him with frustration. Things, he thought, were going to be okay.

He even thought — although this was pure anthropomorphization bias, and not scientific in the least — that whatever creature was singing today sounded cheerful too.

 

~~~

 

So sorry about the delay in broadcast today! It was incredibly unprofessional, and I am terribly, terribly ashamed.

That is, if anyone is in fact listening. And if any sea creatures other than me do, in fact, exist. Koishekh so far has still been outside every time I've checked, but the rest of you I frankly am not sure about.

The reason I was late, you understand...is that I was checking up on that most perfect of existent non-sea-creatures, our favorite scientist, Carlos. He anchored by the rocks again today, so I was able to creep up awfully close and get a good look without risking breaking any secrecy laws. Not that he would likely have noticed anyway, as he was engrossed in some very deep science!

His hair, in case you were wondering, is still perfect.

I would have been even later getting to work, except that all of a sudden Carlos began lowering some kind of microphone into the water. A microphone! For listening! I don't know how well he can hear when he's down under the surface himself, given that damnable hood that covers his ears as well as his magnificent locks, but with a microphone, dear listeners, he has to be hearing me very clearly _right now!_

This is the most romantic thing anyone's ever done for me.

Oh, but he probably doesn't even know that I exist. And while I did minor in Humanish in school, it's not like the City Council would authorize me to start speaking it when an actual human is listening.

Maybe it's all for the best. I would probably get all flustered and say something totally embarrassing. Like, _hello, Carlos, how's the science today?_ See? I've been thinking about him all afternoon, and that's the best I've come up with!

 

~~~

 

Carlos sat up so fast he knocked the headphones down onto his neck.

Heart racing, he shoved them back up over his ears. Nothing but totally normal ocean sounds greeted him. And certainly nothing that sounded like a water-garbled version of English.

Pareidolia, he told himself. The human tendency to perceive significant patterns in random stimuli. A normal evolutionary adaptation, which did _not_ mean he was losing his mind.

No. No, wait. He was recording this. He could play it back. Carlos pulled off the headphones and raced into the cabin, tapping the keyboard to wake up the computer that was archiving the audio. He could play it back while paying close attention this time, and the random sounds would turn out to be random sounds after all, and he would feel much better...

...or he could have, if not for the error message declaring "Destination Disk Full, Operation Terminated" and the series of audio files only timestamped up to an hour ago.

Carlos played the latest one anyway. It turned out to contain twenty minutes of irregular static.

He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and went back outside to take up anchor. With more malfunctioning equipment and his own brain clearly ready to pack it in for the day, he might as well return to town and have dinner. After some balanced meals and a good night's sleep, he would be able to do a better job of not hearing the ocean ask him (of all things) "how the science was today."


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carlos' research lands him in possibly-fatal waters. If it takes breaking a few municipal mandates to rescue him, so be it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The songs referenced are [Satellite High - The Bus Is Late](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyK9UUfChi4) (the weather from Glow Cloud) and [Doomtree - Team The Best Team](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W84_ASwtNPs) (the weather from First Date).

Although Carlos was frustrated to have lost both Gwen and (without any warning at all, this time) Rashid, at least one of his newly arrived team members was here to study underwater acoustics.

He tried to sound nonchalant when he brought up the whalesong (dolphin-song? Identifying animals by underwater vocalizations wasn't his field), and Jessica was happy to give it some focus. In her effort to pin down its source, they took the boat out farther than ever, triangulating the sound waves from points where the coast was just a low stripe on the horizon. They got Sam a wider variety of plankton to study this way, too.

Turned out there was a limit to how far from the coast they could get, in that after a certain point, all the compasses on board stopped working. Not only that, they all pointed in different directions. Carlos took as many notes as he could on what must have been some kind of magnetic phenomenon none of them really understood, before the crew had no choice but to point the ship back towards town lest they become hopelessly lost.

After a week or so of this, Jessica aimed the boat towards a point at the far end of the reef, saying, "I still have no idea where this sound is coming from — it's like the source of the damn thing is exactly the same distance from wherever we stop — so what the hell, let's try here."

Naturally, Carlos decided to suit up and go down with the hydrophone. "A scientist is hands-on," he explained to the team. "That's the first thing a scientist is."

It sounded really weak when he said it out loud, but either Sam and Jessica didn't notice, or they were resigned to going along with his authority no matter what. (And, listen, why shouldn't they? He had spent months investigating the local anomalies without giving up and fleeing. They had seen enough by this point to recognize that this was impressive.)

Today the water was testing as so basic that it should have been corroding organic matter. But Carlos' skin was going to be completely covered. Besides, the fish looked fine.

He triple-checked his breathing apparatus, adjusted the strap of their brand-new state-of-the-art underwater camera, and slid with a splash into the ocean.

 

~~~

 

Exciting news today! Intern Dory — you remember, the one who went into Dogfish Cove, and was presumed horribly devoured by the hooded seals — sent me a chirp this morning!

She assures us all that she is doing fine, and the seals, while they keep inflating air sacs at her in a very disconcerting manner, have shown no sign of devouring her. However, she reports that she's getting pretty hungry. So, listeners, if you happen to have any spare chum that can be digested by a healthy bottlenose dolphin, please either pass it to an amphibious friend or, if you are yourself amphibious, haul it out onto shore and find a safe distance from which to chuck it into the cove. Dory would really appreciate it!

The Apache Trout — and I remind you that this is that really racist white steenbras who covers himself with cartoonishly offensive gold paint and spots — has announced that he has found...

...has found a...

...do you hear that?

Listeners, I...I can hardly believe what my senses are telling me! Carlos — sweet, intelligent, scientific Carlos — has descended once again from above the surface into our fair town...and he's _practically right on top of me!_

I tell you, listeners, if I had not already used up my government-allotted hours of unconsciousness for this quarter, I just might be passing out right now.

Not that this changes anything, of course. Contact with the human world is very strictly forbidden, and no, Steve Cuttlesberg, there is a perfectly good reason for it, so whatever anti-establishment propaganda you were about to chirp in my direction, you can cut that out right now! I do not need your misguided attempts at comfort here.

Jerk.

Where was I...? Oh yes: he's _right there!_ The station headquarters from which I am broadcasting is, as you know, in a nice old-fashioned cavern across from the end of the reef, and up near the top of the reef, there he is! If I poke my head out I can see him. Every time he kicks his perfect feet I can feel the water move!

Do you think he can hear my voice right now? Do you think he likes it?

What if he decides to dive _this way?_

I would just have to put on a pre-recorded spot and find a place to hide. After all, as a good mer-citizen of my community, I have a duty not to be seen by any humans, but as a broadcaster I have a professional duty to —

— to —

_And now it's time for Community Health Watch._

_The Council for Commerce reminds you to regularly consume kelp and kelp by-products! By doing so, you are directly supporting local farmers...as well as local commodities conglomerates! Looking for a snack? Try kelp, or a kelp by-product!..._

 

~~~

 

"I promise, Carlos, there is no way you can do any more adjusting on the hydrophone right now," said Jessica's voice over the radio. "Should we pull you up?"

"No!" exclaimed Carlos. "I mean, um, no, that's all right. I'll stay down for a while. Try to get some real pictures this time, you know?"

So saying, he paddled a few feet deeper, and snapped a couple of photos. Because that was definitely what he was here for.

"Can I just add," he said, after a few minutes, "that the song sounds louder than usual from here? To my ear, at least, even if the equipment isn't picking it up the same way."

"I'll make a note of it," said Jessica from above. "Don't get your hopes up too much, though. It could just mean that the rocks we're close to have really good acoustics for the point you're at."

"Understood," said Carlos. Then: "Give me some slack, will you? I want to go deeper, see if that changes anything."

"We'll get right on it."

Above him, the tether connecting Carlos to the boat began to unspool, drifting down in loose coils through the water.

He kicked his way deeper. Jewel-bright fish scattered into the shelter of the coral as he passed. Down on the sandy bottom, the diamond-shaped outline of a manta ray lifted itself out of the sand and flowed forward.

The chirruping and sonorous notes of whatever marine mammal kept vocalizing seemed to be getting higher-pitched, and perhaps faster, but not louder. As far as Carlos could tell, the only thing changing based on distance was the light, dimming slowly around him as the sun got farther away.

Down near where the rock met the sand, he caught a glimpse of movement.

It was a fish, he realized: one that wasn't swimming away from him as fast as its little fins would carry it. Carlos swam closer, expecting it to bolt any moment. Oddly, it seemed to be waving its tail back and forth, but wasn't moving as a result. The dark figure might not even be drifting in the current.

Though he had no trouble recognizing the long whiskers of a catfish, Carlos was having trouble placing the species. It reminded him of _Heteropneustes fossilis_ , with the solid blue-black coloring and the compressed eellike body...but as he remembered, that species lived in fresh water. Specifically, South Asian fresh water.

He sure hoped he was remembering right. The species he was thinking of packed a painful sting.

The catfish glared at him as he got within ten feet of it...no, that was anthropomorphization bias. Fish didn't glare. They didn't have any of the human-type emotions that went with glaring.

And their eyes certainly didn't _start glowing a dull red as they opened mouths filled with serrated silver FANGS, Madre de Dios —_

The radio in his ear crackled. "Getting choppy up here. We're bringing you up."

"Yes," croaked Carlos. "Yes, okay."

A totally normal catfish watched him go. Sulkily, he thought. Irrational though that was.

Maybe he just wouldn't mention this to his team. Even if he'd just hallucinated the aquatic hellbeast, and the poor fish was nothing weirder than a transplant from a totally different biome, he hadn't gotten photos either way.

 

~~~

 

First of all, I want to apologize for running an out-of-date pre-recorded message, and to remind everyone that kelp and kelp by-products were recently banned as a major health hazard due to their mysterious habit of exploding into something that we are forbidden to recognize or name.

What is a fire, and how does it...what's the word...burn? Especially here, underwater, as all the kelp in question is? I don't know! And neither should you. If you find yourself asking questions like these, drink until you forget them.

This has been Community Health Watch.

Now, as I'm sure you're all wondering about Carlos...it would appear that Koishekh, the little rascal, scared him off. He didn't get so much as a photo.

Phew! That's one potential sticky situation avoided, huh, folks? No risk of him seeing me, now. No chance I will end up accidentally gazing into his bottomless eyes...while he reaches out in wonder to take one of my tentacles in his hand, to prove to himself that I am not a fevered dream of his, that I exist, that we are able to touch...

...none of that will happen.

What a relief...you know?

And now...the weather:

 

 

 

Looks like there's a real bad storm out there, coming up fast.

Please, for your safety, stay in your homes! If you have children or pets who are prone to wandering, try tying them in place until the storm passes. Just be sure to use a binding material that is not kelp. Or a kelp by-product.

 

~~~

 

"Did I lose track of time down there," said Carlos, the wind whipping at his face and sending sprays of salt water into his hair, "or did this squall come up unnaturally fast?"

"Ain't just you," said Sam. "I never seen one hit like this. Give me a hand with these boxes?"

"I'm on it," Carlos told him. "Jessica, we'll cover your stuff too — get inside and drive this thing, would you?"

"On it," said Jessica, wheeling herself in. She was more than capable under any other circumstance, but her chair was simply not designed for these conditions.

Carlos helped Sam haul several boxes of gadgets and notes safely into the cabin, then crisscrossed the deck rounding up some items and tying down others. The last thing left out was the rosette sampler, the heavy apparatus for collecting deep-water samples.

By this point the rain had started, and the boat kept hitting serious swells and jumping under their feet. Carlos' boots kept slipping on the wet deck. His hair was getting in his eyes. "Leave it!" he told Sam. "We have to get inside. It isn't worth it!"

"We got all your stuff!" yelled Sam in return. "We're gettin' mine!"

"It's not safe!" Carlos was at the cabin door. Somewhere in the distance, thunder rumbled.

Sam was clinging to a bar of the machine, trying to drag it on his own and clearly getting nowhere. "I'm —"

The boat yawed painfully to one side, as a massive wave rose up and crashed over the deck.

It was a miracle Sam didn't go overboard. Instead he knocked his head against the railing, and, once they were mostly horizontal again, slumped to the floor beside it. His life jacket was a brilliant orange against the dull white of the boat and the roaring greys of the sea and the clouds.

Carlos ran to him.

Fueled on adrenaline, he dragged Sam's semiconscious body across the slick deck. The door, left unlatched, banged with the wind and the turbulence. When a swell nudged them the right way to send the door clanging open, Carlos shoved his colleague through.

Then came the second wave.

It tossed him into the air, banged his shins on the railing as he went over, hurled him blind into the raging waters. He barely knew which way was up. His life jacket bobbed near the surface as best it could when the whole ocean seemed to be trying to punch it under.

The grinding of the boat's engine faded into the general blur.

Carlos was choking on sea water. No suit, no breathing equipment, no protection. He didn't even know which way the shore was.

He was going to drown.

As black spots appeared in his vision, his oxygen-starved brain started dredging up flashes of nonsense. The flowers in the window box at his university apartment. The gears of his father's watch spread all over the kitchen table after he took it apart. A lemon pastry he ate when he was studying abroad in Svitz. _That's not the right name. What's the right name?_ A handful of measures from a silly song his little sister used to play over and over.

_Waitin' on the boat in the rain, in the rain / waitin' on the boat in the rain / I've been waitin' for the boat as the sun came up / but the sun ain't out no more 'cause it's grey...._

 

~~~

 

Wherever you are, listeners, don't move.

I'll be back soon.

 

~~~

 

 

_waitin' for the boat in the rain, in the rain  
waitin' for the boat in the rain_

_when the boat come?  
where the boat at?_

_not the right boat, not the boat I need_

_like I do every day on my way home  
waitin' for the boat in the rain_

_at least on the days when it's raining and I'm waitin' for the boat_

_'cause the other days ain't the same_

 

~~~

 

I know this is a news broadcast, not Seacil's Personal Life broadcast, but I just have to talk about this.

The storm — which has passed now, and emergency workers are out in force, so if you are not directly involved in the recovery and cleanup, please stay out of the currents to make way for those who are — that damnable storm threw my poor sweet Carlos off of his boat! He was without any of his special equipment, and I could tell right away that he had not stood in a bloodstone circle and made the appropriate sacrifices to temporarily protect him against needing to breathe.

What else could I do? I jet-propelled my way up to the surface, tentacles flailing wildly in my haste. Dear Carlos must have done _some_ ritual correctly, for his body refused to sink, even though by the time I reached him he was unmoving and —

He was alive, listeners, as I found out later, but in the moment I was so scared, I —

It's okay. I'm okay now.

Because I made sure perfect Carlos _stayed_ alive. I got my arms around his body and made sure to hold his head above water, no matter how much it tried to wash over him. At first I thought about following the boat he had come from, but decided it would be safer for Carlos if I took him to shore instead.

He started coughing sea water along the way. That was the only way I knew he was still breathing. Humans are such delicate things....

My hyponome is still sore from all that jetting, let me tell you! But I was far too worried to slow down, and I do not regret it. At last my tentacles touched down on sand, and I used two of them to help my arms cradle my scientist's fragile body as I crawled up out of the foam. The beach was deserted, and I could have left Carlos on the dunes in safety, but what if the water levels had risen? What then?

Thankfully, the humans had had the foresight to carve winding paths up the sides of the rocky bluffs on either side. It's something to do with "cars", if you know what those are. So we went up one of those, and I found a patch of grass partly shielded by a spur of rock so that it wasn't _quite_ as soaked as the rest of it, and I laid my precious Carlos down.

His hair, his perfect hair, was soaked through and tangled, matted with salt and sand.

And he was shivering so badly by now, listeners. Any normal mammal would build up a sensible store of fat to insulate against the cold and the wet, but Carlos has so little — if I hadn't seen other humans before, I would have thought the poor man was emaciated. What are you supposed to do when someone shivers?

...Of course there's the obvious, but I didn't have a bloodstone circle handy. It isn't as if they grow on...whatever the plants up here are called.

I did everything I could think of for him. I shielded him from the rain; I turned his head to the side when he coughed seawater so he wouldn't simply swallow it again; I watched like a hawkfish for any other signs of distress, any pains that I could ease.

And I...some of you may think this silly and sentimental, but there's [this old eldritch chant](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W84_ASwtNPs) my mother used to intone over my cradle when I was a little hatchling, and I translated it into several dialects of Humanish as part of my senior thesis, so...I sort of sang it. Over him. You know, to pass the time.

He probably won't remember any of it. In fact, he definitely won't! I am willing to say that under oath, if the member of the Sheriff's Secret Police hiding behind my desk would like to swear me in.

...Not necessary at this time? Great.

So. Hours later, after the pelting rain had ceased and the oily clouds had faded from the sky, Carlos was no longer coughing, but breathing what appears to be human-normal, and only shivering a little. A full moon rose above us...assuming the moon is real, and not an optical illusion, as the fact that it looked no larger up here than it does underwater would attest...and I wriggled aside, and the light fell across Carlos' face, and he was beautiful. Matted hair and all.

When he started to wake up, I left immediately.

Honest to Shub-Niggurath, I did. I will admit that I was very reluctant! But I crossed the car-path, climbed partway down the side of the rocks, watched with only the top of my head visible until I saw for certain that Carlos was getting up, and then went straight back down into the ocean, heart racing in my chest.

It's still racing now.

I don't know if it's ever going to stop.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While Carlos tries to pick up after his near-death experience, Seacil finally gets morphed into the necessary shape to meet him face-to-face. Now he has the traditional three days to get a loved one's kiss (and/or THE BROWNSTONE SPIRE) and make the change permanent.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is now [fanart of pining Seacil](http://crystalice96.deviantart.com/art/Pining-for-Love-2-398185082)! ([Also on Tumblr](http://atomicmuffin.tumblr.com/post/60157415899/so-today-i-started-reading-this-awesome-cecilos).) I love it so much =D
> 
> Quoted lyrics here are from [Doomtree - Team The Best Team](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W84_ASwtNPs) (the weather from First Date). Like everyone else, I have [a mental image of canon!Cecil](http://sailorptah.deviantart.com/gallery/?catpath=%2F&q=night+vale), but that's not what I used here; art of human!Seacil will be coming up soon.

The first car that Carlos managed to flag down took him directly to the hospital without his having to ask.

He was treated for mild hypothermia, and, once they were sure his body temperature was fine, given ice packs for the bruises on his shins. Nurses with toothy smiles disinfected his scrapes, made sure he was hydrated, and told him how lucky he was to have survived at all. He asked for a phone, got one, and first called up the lab to let his teammates know he was all right.

Nobody answered.

Someone stopped in to give him what he assumed was a psych evaluation, with a few unnervingly specific questions about whether he'd had mental images of blood and/or viscera being all over everything. Carlos tried to give normal answers, or at least "normal for Ocean Bluffs" answers. He was banged-up and shaken, his memories a blur of fear and cold and water, and there was a song he couldn't remember ever hearing stuck in his head, but he was basically fine.

Hallucinations didn't count if you knew they were hallucinations, after all. And he knew he couldn't really have been carried to shore by anything with tentacles.

He didn't have a scrap of ID on him; it was just lucky his license and credit cards were at the lab, rather than washed out to sea along with his company ID, his glasses, and his left shoe. (Lucky he had spare glasses at the lab, too.) The landlord who was renting them the space did answer her phone, and he was able to arrange for her to show up in a few hours and let him in.

Shortly before he was released, a Strexcorp Insurance agent stopped by to let him know that the boat they were renting had not yet come back to port, and left him the bill. Carlos was discharged with the invoice in one hand and a gluten-free sandwich (the only kind the hospital cantina sold) in the other.

 _But we’re still gonna suffer / we got burnt / we met our match and struck first / Suckers should have known better than to let us head our own search and destroy,_ went the song stuck in his head.

 

~~~

 

And now, a word from our sponsors.

That word is: Carp!

Moving right along...I'm sure we've all had our share of encounters with magic. Who among us has not sat in our bloodstone circles and done a few simple chants to relieve minor stains, or to boost their children's confidence on the first day of school, or to summon fungus to attack the fins of that brat who bullied their children on the first day of school?

Now, for bigger projects, many people feel more comfortable calling in an expert.

Old Merwoman Josie says her angelfish give her all sorts of helpful tips, so I recommend visiting her if you aren't confident in your own skills, or if you just feel like having a muffin.

The Apache Trout — who is, you will recall, a white steenbras — talks a lot about having ~Indian magics~, which is just one more reason to avoid him, if you ask me. I mean, seriously, "Indian magics"? What a racist jerk.

The Merman with the Tan Scales is rumored to have fearsome and tremendous powers, although where these rumors started I do not know, because nobody who has interacted with him can remember much of what was said. It is also still a mystery what exactly he looks like, aside from having tan scales.

Heron McDaniels tweeted once about what he would do if _he_ were a top-ranked magic-user, and let me tell you, it was inspirational. As a public servant I am not allowed to make an official endorsement, but if I were, let me tell you, I would be all over this! If you want some solid expertise, and are not vulnerable to the siren lure of photophores — which McDaniels has five of, being a five-headed dragonfish — then go visit Heron McDaniels, is what I would say.

But for all those intrepid do-it-yourselfers out there...this is our DIY Magic Corner.

Today we're going to walk you through the steps of a basic short-term shapechanging spell.

 

~~~

 

 _Remember that road we’d take? / I swear the devil’s backbone would break / We made it our home and it’s great and it’s good / it’s the same as it ever was,_ ran the lyrics in Carlos' head, cycling around that verse for the tenth or eleventh time. It went away when he got swept up in work, but any time he rested or let his mind wander, it kept filtering back in.

It was more of a chant than a song, really. He'd pinned down a couple of phrases long enough to google them, but either the lyrics weren't online or he wasn't remembering them right.

(If he was remembering them at all. If his brain wasn't making them up as it went along. The phrases had the disorganized-speech quality found in...well, in the early stages of schizophrenia, but also in music, so he had no reason to panic.)

Most of the day was spent talking with his health insurance company, sending the university a heartbroken-but-professional status report, and trying to put together a list of everything lost with the boat. All the equipment, anyway. For record-keeping purposes.

Around dinnertime, someone came by to let him know that the boat had been found after all.

It was drifting in the open sea, completely out of fuel, with both occupants alive but badly injured. They'd been airlifted to a hospital in the city an hour away. Carlos was too emotionally drained by this point to fully feel the relief, but he thanked the messenger and made an appointment to go down to the docks the next day and judge if any of the equipment was salvageable.

 _We came, we saw, we came back / We played 'em songs we made quick / We went back home just to fill those pages to the edges, and it’s aces / It’s all coming up roses..._ ran the chant as he crawled into bed in the tiny apartment above the lab, still in the clothes he'd changed into right after getting back. It was barely even sunset, and there was more paperwork to get through, but he was so very tired.

 

~~~

 

I am happy to report that the casting was a complete success.

And let me tell you, it has never been more of a relief that I was born without pain receptors! The way some of my tentacles shriveled looked like it might have been a doozy if I could feel it.

According to the parameters of the spell, and the number of eels sacrificed in the process, I will be remaining in this altered form for precisely three days. That is, on sunset on the third day it will expire, and I will revert back to normal — unless some greater force intervenes within that time to make the effect permanent.

 

_A list of forces that have this ability:_

Radiation.

The void.

A mountain.

A five-legged sheep.

A loved one's kiss.

Emotions you don't understand upon viewing the sunset.

A secret lost pet city on the moon.

Trees that see.

Special disposition of the mayor's office.

THE BROWNSTONE SPIRE.

Kentucky Fried Chicken.

 

You can probably guess which one I'll be going for! Especially since some of those don't even exist. I mean, come on, mountains? Ugh, pull the other ones.

Now, I am not intimately familiar with humans, having only observed them at a distance, but this new shape is consistent with everything I know. It has two arms with non-webbed fingers, two legs, absolutely no fins, and scale-free skin in a nice brownish hue with absolutely no stripes, markings, or mottling.

It also has — and I am embarrassed to admit that I did not prepare for this beforehand — no gills, and is only able to extract oxygen from air. Lucky for me that Intern Ariel was present, and had the initiative to drag me up to the surface as quickly as possible. Well done, Ariel! You are certainly going to get a good reference out of this.

Of course, since I am currently treading water and speaking into the open air, I have no idea how far this is broadcasting. It may well be that no one at all can hear me.

But isn't that always the case, listeners? How can we ever know if others outside the reach of our senses exist, or if we are throwing useless empty words into the void?

For instance, right now, the only person I am absolutely sure exists is Ariel, who is helping me to shore (where I hope to confirm that Carlos — brave, perfect Carlos — also exists). Thank you again, Ariel. And yes, I will certainly keep an eye out for any opportunity to bring you back a dinglehopper.

 

~~~

 

Carlos was not giving up on his sanity, and he was certainly not giving up on Science, the one true love of his life.

But he was seriously considering giving up on Ocean Bluffs.

The stress was obviously getting to him. Maybe he just didn't have the constitution to handle scientific impossibility _and_ his growing feeling of being creeped-out by the town (with Strexcorp cameras on every corner, and too many teeth in everybody's smiles) _and_ a near-death experience. Just pulling the truck around a corner and coming in view of the waterfront was making him feel short of breath.

Going out on the water was his failsafe method of decompressing. How could he lean on that here, now, when he knew how fast a storm could blow up?

Besides, he missed working with people long-term. This area drove away all his fellow scientists within a few weeks of arrival, through major injuries or sheer frustration, and none of them had even kept in touch. Carlos rarely minded being alone, but that didn't mean he didn't want friends.

One solid, meaningful human connection. Was that too much to ask?

He tried to put it all out of his mind as he parked at the marina...which just made the song/chant bubble up to the surface of his brain again. _Closes may come and we know this / No risk, no fun, no way, nobody’s gonna break my stride, no sir...._

Sign in. Go through to the docks. Find the boat. (God, it looked battered.) He wasn't making any decisions until he'd been through the equipment. Not like he could leave until he'd dealt with it either way.

Fixating on this practical train of thought, he got to the dock with the roughed-up boat bobbing unhappily in the waves to his left...

...and everything else was shocked out of his mind.

There was someone sleeping in the boat.

The intruder was a man who looked a few years younger than Carlos, although maybe it was the lack of grey in his hair — which was shortish and black, but not a warm rich black like Carlos's, more of a glossy black with a purple-blue-green sheen reminiscent of mussel shells. He was curled up on the deck, using a spare life jacket as a pillow, and wearing...for a loose definition of "wearing"...what looked like a canvas sail, tied into the shape of a tunic by a rope that might have been filched from a life preserver.

Carlos thought about calling the marina owner on this guy. Then he thought about how strict some Ocean Bluffs businesses could be with their rules, and decided to give the stranger a chance to leave on his own without getting in trouble for it.

He swung his legs over the railing and down onto the deck, sank into a tentative crouch, and said, "Hey. Hey, wake up!"

The stranger's eyes popped open with a gasp.

Both of them were pearly white, so clouded over with cataracts that Carlos could barely find the outline of the iris underneath. Thank goodness he hadn't brought down security on this poor, blind, probably homeless —

Then the stranger looked directly at his face, broke into a dazzling grin, and exclaimed, "Carlos! You found me!"

Well, there went all Carlos' assumptions overboard.

"I got here in the middle of the night," continued the not-blind, probably-not-homeless man who was here for Carlos specifically, "and then I realized I didn't know where you were staying, or how to get in touch with you, and I thought, ugh, Seacil, what were you thinking, leaving without even looking that up? But then I realized I knew what your boat looked like! So I found it, and when I saw all your science equipment still here I just knew you would come back."

Carlos wasn't used to being, well, _gushed_ at like this. "Sorry, did you say your name was Cecil? And you're...a new arrival for the science team?" He hadn't gone through any applications in the past two days. Maybe the university decided they'd have better luck sending him team members than letting him keep picking.

"Yes!" exclaimed Cecil, sitting up. "Yes, I'm here to do science. With you. I'm a scientist."

"And why are you wearing...that?"

Cecil's face fell. "I thought...do you not like it? I thought it was very stylish."

Now Carlos felt even worse. He'd never understood fashion; for all he knew, faux-shipwreck-victim was the hot new look in New York right now. And even if it wasn't, if it was exactly as stupid as Carlos thought it looked, he had a responsibility not to pick on his subordinates.

"Sorry, it just, ah, surprised me," he stammered. " _You_ surprised me. I mean, I didn't get any warning you were coming, I didn't have any time to prepare...not that you need to get started this minute!" His mind was going in five directions at once. Cecil must have had the worst night's sleep ever, and when had he last eaten? "How about if I drive you back to the lab? There's food in the fridge, and you can get some real sleep in one of the rooms the last team left. I'll try to get you a copy of the key by this afternoon."

It was only common decency, but it made Cecil gaze at him in rapt adoration. "You're so thoughtful, Carlos — perfect Carlos! With your perfect hair! But now that I'm here, nothing would make me happier than to help with...whatever you're doing today. What experiments are there to be done? What mystery needs to be explored?"

Carlos ran a self-conscious hand through his hair. "Right this second, nothing. That is, there are plenty of mysteries, but what I'm doing is hauling stuff out of this boat. I guess if you feel up to carrying things...."

"Oh, Carlos," said Cecil, settling into a deep, sonorous voice. "Nothing would make me happier."

 

~~~

 

Seacil had _done it!_

He was here. On land! With Carlos! He was _carrying things_ ("It looks bad because the monitor's smashed, but we might be able to salvage the hard drive; just be careful not to cut yourself on the glass") from one place to another, for Carlos!

Carlos, whose hair was _even more perfect_ up close.

His only regret was that he had nobody to narrate this to.

Seacil couldn't even tell the bulk of it to Carlos. The shapeshifting spell came with lots of perks, including a complete command of local Humanish to go with the vocal cords for it, but it also had restrictions, one of which was "no talking about your original shape." Even roundabout mentions were blocked, as he found when he tried to nonchalantly ask how Carlos felt about tentacles.

Not that Seacil would ever have tentacles again, if all this worked out.

Feet and legs were taking some getting used to, but he was adapting pretty quickly. He'd only fallen over once, and with more practice he was barely even stumbling and wobbling any more. Carlos, thoughtful Carlos, didn't say anything about it, but did start giving Seacil only the lightest objects to carry, and no more than a few at a time.

Winning the affections of someone this perfect was going to be tough. Seacil wasn't even technically a scientist...although he was very into science these days...and hadn't they all been scientists, at one point or another?

"I think this is the last of it," said Carlos at last. He was cradling the recording apparatus: the microphone dangling from a cable looped around one arm, his well-padded headphones hanging over the other, and a recording device with lots of light-up buttons in his hand. "The recorder won't power on, but I'm hoping we can get it to work with a new battery, and the rest of it might be salvageable too."

Empty-handed, Seacil followed him out into the parking lot. "I hope so! That's sort of my field, you know. Sounds. Like, for instance, vocalizations. But underwater."

"It's all right, you don't have to dumb things down for me," Carlos assured him. "Marine chemistry is my specialty, but I try to keep up with other fields in oceanography, so I do know the basics of hydroacoustics."

"Neat!" said Seacil.

And then he mentally slapped himself, because Carlos had said all these swoon-worthy science words, and the best he could come up with in response was _neat_.

Carlos kept right on talking. "We won't be able to take new recordings for a while, but I'll take you through the acoustic data we've managed to compile so far, and then you can dive right into that." With Seacil's help he threw a tarp over the contents of the truck bed and strapped it into place. "Uh, you'll want lunch first, I'm sure. Do you want to swing by the Arby's with me and grab something?"

Were Seacil's ears deceiving him? Was this a _date?_

"Yes!" he exclaimed, dizzy with glee. Although maybe he shouldn't presume. "But, well, I don't have any money on me," he admitted, and then, on a sudden surge of inspiration, "All my stuff is scheduled to be shipped out here in a couple of days." At that point he would either be able to tell Carlos the whole truth, or, well, or it wouldn't matter what Carlos thought any more. Either way, now Seacil wouldn't look too suspicious in the meantime.

"They sent you down here without any money? How were they expecting you to...?" said Carlos, indignant. Indignant on Seacil's behalf. How utterly charming. "Don't worry about it. I'll cover you. We can take it out of the petty cash box. C'mon, hop in."

 

~~~

 

He shouldn't get attached, Carlos told himself. No matter how enthusiastic Cecil seemed now, about everything from stop signs to the truck radio to Carlos' hair, he would probably be over it and ready to leave in a few weeks. If he wasn't horribly injured before then.

If _Carlos_ wasn't horribly injured before then. Whatever entity (if any) had rescued him from the storm wasn't always going to be around, after all.

The radio was playing static on all stations, so Carlos' brain defaulted back to the song that had been there all day. _No risk, no fun, no way, nobody’s gonna break my stride, no sir / Those days look like these days / except for maybe these grays / But that’s just my salt and pepper, my heart and soul won’t live forever..._

He didn't realize he was humming the melody until Cecil — who had been distracted by the view out the window, and thus, for once, not gazing with off-putting adoration at Carlos — turned sharply back to him. "You remember that song?"

"You know it?" said Carlos, maybe too eagerly. "It's been stuck in my head all day! And I have no idea what the title is, or where I even heard it, and the lyrics keep slipping away when I try to focus on them, and I couldn't find anything about it online...I was starting to wonder if I'd just made it up."

"No, sweet Carlos, you certainly did not create _that_ ," said Cecil with a laugh.

"I guess not. So what's it called?"

Carlos' eyes were on the road, but he could feel Cecil's prickling gaze on him. "Nothing that can be pronounced in this language. Would it help if I sang it for you?"

"Yes, please," said Carlos fervently. Odd though Cecil might be, he had the kind of voice you just wanted to listen to.

So it was that he pulled into the lot behind the Arby's with Cecil's song pouring into his ears, soothing and reassuring, even when the words themselves weren't. "We all fall for the decoy / Sometimes it slides right by while we’re trying to decide / Don’t lie to yourself / almost ain’t good enough / and there ain’t no extra lives...."


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carlos and his new pseudo-co-worker make beautiful science together. And then take a long walk on the beach. The way things are going, Seacil's due to get a kiss any minute now. Definitely. Probably.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New art: [Human!Seacil in Carlos' shirt](http://sailorptah.deviantart.com/art/Part-Of-Your-World-398191035) =3

You met some weird people in academia, and for the most part Carlos was able to roll with it by now. But even by his standards, Cecil was pretty weird.

He got fascinated with the plastic fork dispenser at the Arby's, and had made about eight of them pop out before Carlos gently pulled him away. At the counter he tried to order three different species of fish that even Carlos had never heard of, until Carlos gently suggested that he try a beef burger with cheddar instead — which he ate slowly and warily, as if he'd never had hamburger before. Maybe he hadn't even been in a fast food place before, judging by how he had no clue where to find the bathrooms.

Not only that, after Carlos pointed them out, Cecil tried to go into the ladies' room. With anyone else Carlos would have withheld judgment, but at this point he figured it was likely Cecil just didn't understand the signs. Sure enough, when Carlos drew his attention to them, Cecil looked from the "person in a skirt with legs together" figure to the "generic person with legs apart" figure and said "Oh, right! Sorry, didn't even notice" before disappearing into the men's.

Most of the Ocean Bluffs natives paid them no attention. Maybe it was that over-the-top local politeness in action. Or maybe excitable people wearing sails-and-rope tunics were an everyday sight after all, and Carlos just hadn't been out among normal people enough lately to notice.

He offered to let Cecil borrow some of his clothes for the next couple of days anyway. No matter how fashionable it was, Cecil couldn't just wear the same outfit constantly while he waited for the rest of them to arrive.

 

~~~

 

Carlos gave Seacil a complete tour of the lab and the apartment above. It had four bedrooms, one of which was full of Carlos' things; the rest of them just had a few pieces of bare furniture, which gave Carlos a start when he first saw.

"Someone must have come by to pick up the last team's possessions while we were out," he said, not sounding happy about it. "Wish they'd let me know first...I guess that means you can have your pick of rooms. Do you want the first shower?"

A "shower", it turned out, was when you went in a small room and made a contraption pour water over you. Seacil wasn't entirely clear on the point of this. Like, either go all the way and become a water-dwelling creature or stick to the dry open air, just make up your mind, you know? But Carlos thought it was a good idea, so Seacil went along with it.

The shower room had a bunch of bottles with different liquids in them. Reading the labels, Seacil started to get excited. Some of them were things you put in your hair! Could this be Perfect Carlos' secret? Would it be a faux pas if Seacil tried them on himself?

Pondering this, he took a drink from the water conveniently falling down over him...

...and spat it out instantly. It tasted _awful_. Nasty, almost sour...what was in this stuff? Was it safe?

Seacil wrenched the handle that turned off the water, stumbled out of the tub it had been pouring into, and grabbed the big fluffy rectangle of cloth hanging on the wall. There was a pile of Carlos' clothes folded on the toilet, but he didn't want to waste time figuring out how to get into them. (Besides, the fluffy cloth was a lot more comfortable. Why didn't humans just wear these?)

(He had finally figured out why humans wore clothes in general. It turned out this body's sexual organs didn't retract at all. You had to resort to artificial coverings to keep the things safe.)

"Carlos!" he yelled down the hall, wrapping the fluffy cloth around his waist and tucking it into place. "Carlos, there's something wrong with the water!"

Carlos was out of his room in a flash. "What's—" He gave Seacil a quick once-over, and stuttered over the words. "What is it? What happened?"

"I don't know!" said Seacil plaintively. There were drips of the possibly-toxic water still dripping from his hair, running down his torso. "It tastes weird. That's all I know. This is your area! Do some science and figure it out!"

"I will. I promise. It's gonna be okay, Cecil." The warm caramel tones of Carlos' voice were soothing, even if he kept pronouncing Seacil's name slightly wrong. "Grab the clothes and go ahead and change in your room, okay? I'll bring up the equipment and start running some tests."

 

~~~

 

The water sample Carlos tested from the bathtub faucet came up with the first normal readings he'd seen since coming to Ocean Bluffs.

He was immediately suspicious. 

The next three samples tested as roughly the same, and well within normal tap-water parameters. For comparison, he tested one from the bathroom sink. Same deal. Maybe it wasn't a fluke or a trick. The town might be creepy, but it was only the ocean that insisted on being impossible.

Still, he'd better test a few from the kitchenette too, just in case.

Cecil stayed in the room he'd picked, for so long that Carlos thought he must be taking a nap. This was student housing during the year, so at least the rooms came pre-stocked with cheap beds. A bare mattress would still be a step up from where he'd slept last night, and by this evening Carlos should be able to dig out a sheet from somewhere to tide him over....

"Carlos? How's it coming?"

"So far, so...normal," said Carlos, trying not to stutter this time. It might be forgivable when surprised by a nearly-naked young man with a strikingly attractive torso, but it was definitely not okay with a fully clothed co-worker. Even if the clothes _were_ yours. And even if the blue flannel really brought out those (intriguing) mussel-shell hues in his dark hair.

Cecil frowned. "Normal is good, right?"

"Right! I mean, in theory it's good. In practice, I can't swear all the equipment is actually working." Carlos indicated the sensors, the laptop where he was taking notes, the stack of chemical test strips, the rows of carefully-labeled sample bottles...and realized that he'd taken over the entire kitchenette table. "Sorry, I'll clear some of this stuff away so you can sit."

"No, don't go to any trouble! Leave it out. It all looks very interesting." Cecil took the chair across from Carlos. "Why are you afraid the equipment's not working?"

It turned out Cecil already knew that Carlos and his ever-rotating team kept getting weird data; he just didn't yet grasp exactly _how_ weird. Carlos started to explain the basics, bracing himself for the inevitable criticism: _That's obviously not possible. You need to replace the equipment. Oh, you just replaced it? Then you must be doing the tests wrong. Or interpreting the results wrong._ Newly-arrived scientists in the area always had to run a few experiments with their own hands before it started to sink in.

But the criticism never came. Cecil listened, and nodded along, and asked for details or clarification when he hadn't followed something, and never once suggested that Carlos might be the problem.

The respect did wonders for Carlos' self-confidence. He found himself admitting to some of his theories, the ones that sounded crazy even to him, but that were the most realistic explanations he could think of. Ideas about chemical testing, and polluted runoff, and radiation, and Strexcorp drilling, and other less-public Strexcorp activities.

Somewhere in the middle, he got up to turn on the light, because the view out the window was dimming as the sun set.

Cecil didn't say it sounded crazy. Cecil admitted he didn't know much about the town, but they could be very inconsiderate with their pollutants — the plastic bags alone were a huge concern! — and if Carlos thought it might be even worse, well, maybe they were! "I mean, you're so smart, anything you come up with must be a good idea," he said with total conviction, making Carlos' face heat up. "That doesn't always make it the _right_ idea...but aren't good wrong ideas what most of science is about?"

Carlos was way too self-conscious to just take the compliment directly. "You sure do have a way with words, Cecil."

"I do?" breathed Cecil, slipping back into rapt-adoration mode. "You really think so?"

"Well, yes." Carlos really needed to change the subject before his new colleague melted into a happy puddle on the floor. "Hey, speaking of good wrong ideas...."

"Yeah?"

"We need independent confirmation to find out if this equipment is good. We don't have a second set of equipment this sensitive." Carlos was up again, opening the cupboards, pulling out a couple of mugs. "But we do have a second set of equipment, designed to provide general information about chemical makeup. Besides, I need a drink."

So saying, he poured half of one of the sample bottles into a mug (captioned "If You're Not Part Of The Solution, You're Part Of The Precipitate"), and took a sip.

Cecil gaped at him in mute, openmouthed horror, pearly eyes opened wide.

"Tastes fine to me," announced Carlos. He took a more normal swallow. "Yes, data continues to suggest that this is normal water. And now I have a hypothesis. But I'll need you to taste the same sample first."

The fact that he wasn't dropping dead of poison seemed to blunt the shock for Cecil, but he still eyed the half-empty sample bottle with distaste. "Do I have to? What's the hypothesis?"

"I can't tell you. It'll bias the data. Please? For science?"

"...Okay," said Cecil. "For science. But you're lucky your hair is so perfect, that's all I'm saying."

Carlos poured the rest of the sample into the other mug (this one featuring a blue line of waves over the block letters "Oceanographers Do It by Going Deep") and handed it across the table to him. Cecil used both hands to hold it, and moved it gingerly to his mouth, grimacing all the while.

"Nothing's changed!" he announced after the first sip. "It's still terrible. Almost sour."

Carlos sank back into his chair, laughing.

"What is it? What's so funny? This is very serious, Carlos!"

"I'm not laughing at you, I promise," giggled Carlos, overwhelmed with relief. "I spent all this time searching for dangerous chemicals, worrying about health risks, imagining different conspiracy theories...and skipped right over the obvious: you're not used to the local tap water."

It didn't sink in at first. Carlos had to explain about the way different environments could affect water tables, everything from the minerals in the local bedrock to the atmosphere where rain clouds formed changing the composition of the groundwater, and, ultimately, the reservoirs. At last Cecil had absorbed enough of it to say, "You mean...I made you do all this science for no reason?"

"No, Cecil, it's fine, don't think like that!" said Carlos. "It was a nice break. Doing some old-fashioned school-level chemistry, where you get results that make sense and get to eat the experiment afterward...it was fun."

Cecil's face had all the sweet hopefulness of a concerned seal pup. "Really?"

"Really." Carlos smiled at him, forgetting for once to be self-conscious. "Speaking of eating, if you want dinner, help yourself to whatever's in the fridge. Me, I'm overdue for a shower."

 

~~~

 

After dinner Carlos showed Seacil the "computer" with the "programs" that were used to study the audio samples, Seacil stayed up late into the night trying to figure out how to use it. His newfound command of local Humanish was strained to the limit, absorbing new terminology and navigating unfamiliar interfaces.

He read a _lot_ of help files.

But even with the strange new systems to get used to, Seacil had one major thing going for him. He hadn't been kidding when he told Carlos that sound was his field.

It was child's play to work out how, in theory, his old broadcasts could be extrapolated from the recordings of random-seeming static. The only trick was in finding the right steps to make the computer understand what he wanted it to do...and then to reintroduce just enough white noise to garble the language so that no intrepid human translators would have any chance of deciphering it.

At last he queued up half a dozen files, set the computer to rendering, and went back to his room.

The "bed" turned out to be pretty easy to sleep in. Certainly easier than the deck of a boat. And in the morning he got to wake up to Carlos, perfect hair mussed in a way Seacil could never have imagined in his wildest dreams, smiling and asking if he wanted "coffee."

Seacil had no idea what that was, but he was too starstruck to think much about it. "Sweet, generous Carlos," he sighed. "I would love some."

 

~~~

 

Giving Cecil coffee had been a mistake.

He practically bounced around the lab, overflowing with ideas, nearly tripping over the legs of the pants Carlos had lent him today (which were an inch or two long on him, and the cuffs kept unrolling). "This feels amazing!" he bubbled, trying to stay near Carlos but completely unable to hold still, while Carlos opened the folder he had apparently spent the night populating. "If you drink this every day, no wonder you're so brilliant!"

"You get acclimated to it after a while," Carlos pointed out. "Quiet down for just a minute so I can listen to one of these files, okay?"

"Okay!" said Cecil, and clamped his mouth shut, though he couldn't help rocking back and forth on his heels.

Carlos opened the converted file with the first timestamp...and the speakers began to play the staticky but unmistakable sound of the ocean from beneath.

"This is incredible," he said, and meant it. "I thought all we'd gotten that day was random noise. How on earth did you do it?"

Cecil didn't answer. When Carlos looked at him, he tapped meaningfully against his closed mouth.

He was _adorable_. "You can talk again," said Carlos, breaking into a small smile that had nothing to do with their technical success.

"Algorithms!" said Cecil brightly, grinning back. "That's one of my new words. I'm learning all kinds of new words. The distortion sounded familiar, you see, and it had a ring of —"

Here he broke into an improbable squeaky chittering noise that sounded more like it belonged on the underwater audio track than coming out of a human mouth.

Carlos stared at him. "What does _that_ mean?"

Cecil caught himself and coughed, visibly flustered. "It's. Well. Sorry! It's sort of a...traditional exclamation of my people! It translates to...to...you know what, I don't think it actually translates. Sorry again! Don't worry about it!"

That sounded kind of fishy, but Carlos wasn't about to start interrogating the man about his heritage. Cecil probably got that enough already, given his face shape and features that suggested a dozen different ethnicities without committing to any one, and his skin's nice neutral shade of brown that could have been anything all the way down to "heavily-tanned white guy."

"No problem," he said instead. "However you worked it out, I'm just glad you did. Anything else you need for now, or can I leave you to it?"

"All I need, dear Carlos, is your reassuring presence and your melodious voice!" said Cecil. "But if you must...if there is other science calling you to be done...then of course you can go do it."

 

~~~

 

As the caffeine rush wore down, Seacil ended up sitting by the computer with an old-fashioned non-interactive book in front of him. The title was _Topics in Organic Chemistry_ , one of the authors was Dr. Carlos Ramirez, Ph.D. (with a photo of perfect Carlos on the back, missing just the distinguished streak of grey in his otherwise perfect hair), and so far he didn't understand a word of it.

Which just went to show how smart Carlos was.

"Hey, Cecil!" called Carlos from the computer across the lab. "What's your last name?"

"What?" said Seacil, freezing up yet again. He really had to start preparing better for these things.

"Last name," repeated Carlos. "If you mentioned it before, I never caught it."

Seacil stared down at the page the book was opened to. _Baldwin's rules are a series of guidelines outlining the relative favorabilities of ring closure reactions in alicyclic compounds,_ it said helpfully.

"Baldwin!" he told Carlos. "Why?"

"University needs to know which Cecil you are before they can forward your credentials," Carlos explained. "And besides, it would be kind of weird if I didn't know, wouldn't it?"

"Yes," said Seacil automatically. "Weird." He was supposed to have known Carlos' name all along, he realized. Good thing the book had cleared that up for him too.

But wait. What would happen when the the "university" replied to let Carlos know that there was no such person as "Cecil Baldwin"? How would Carlos react? Would Seacil's charade fall apart a day too soon?

"Let's go out!" he exclaimed.

It was Carlos' turn to be confused. "Out?"

"Not on a date!" said Seacil quickly. "I mean, it could be a date. If you wanted. But it doesn't have to be. I just meant, out on the water."

Carlos let the whole "date" part slide right by. "Not today. Our long-term boat rental met an untimely end...and it's not worth it to rush to set up a new one. We have more than enough data to process in the lab for now."

"But...I think I know how to fix the recording equipment!" It was about time Seacil started coming up with bright ideas again. "And I could really use clearer audio, you know, the stuff I've reconstructed here is so crackly — you have to at least let me test it. We could rent a boat just for the day. Just for a couple hours. Please?"

The scientist was staring at a fixed point on his keyboard. Seacil couldn't read his expression.

"Carlos...?"

"I'm not ready," said Carlos. "Okay? I don't know how much you heard about the storm that made your predecessors leave the project, but...if we go out there it could get bad, and it could get bad really fast, and...I just don't have it in me to deal with that right now."

Seacil's lone human heart did weird fluttery things in his chest. Apparently saving Carlos' life from the storm in the moment wasn't enough. He still needed help working past whatever hold the storm had gotten over him.

(Also, Seacil himself had to get down near the water, because he'd managed to pocket a dinglehopper — or, in Humanish, a "fork" — and needed a chance to drop it where Intern Ariel could retrieve it.)

"How about the pier?"

"Sorry?"

"We can do the testing off the end of the pier!" explained Seacil. "I'll get my data, we won't have to rent anything, and we can walk straight back to land if a storm comes up. Which it won't. Not today." Weather was also his field.

"You don't need me along for that, do you?" pointed out Carlos. "I mean, I'm happy to drive you over, but...."

"No, you have to be there too! So you can get used to being around the ocean when it's safe again. You don't have to go out on the water at all. All you'd have to do is sit on the pier."

Carlos thought about it for what felt like a long time. Seacil really wished he understood human facial expressions better, because Carlos sure was making a lot of them.

He guessed the last one was determination, because what Carlos said next was, "Give me a couple minutes to copy this dataset onto my iPad, and I'll be ready to go."

 

~~~

 

The Ocean Bluffs pier was a long, wide wooden structure with benches along the center and railings on both sides. A couple of guys had fishing poles set up at the far end. Other people, locals and tourists alike, walked the length of it in couples and small groups, taking in the view over the edges.

Carlos kept taking in the view too, making sure the clouds that skidded overhead weren't turning dark and thunderous.

He was on a bench while Cecil crouched by the railing across from his feet, adjusting settings on the hydrophone recorder. The output was going to the noise-isolating headphones, this time over Cecil's ears rather than Carlos's, so Cecil could give his full attention to the audio. Every once in a while he would laugh, or mutter something disapproving, or have another frankly unusual reaction; there was a point when Carlos seriously wondered if he'd tuned in a local radio station.

Then Cecil transferred the output to the mini-speakers, and sure enough, it was the sound of undersea waves. No mystery mammal singing or calling today, but nice all the same.

For his part, Carlos was trying to use the fluid dynamics data to model the local vertical ventilation circulation as it affected the distribution of chromophoric dissolved organic matter. It was, as usual, suggesting results that were physically impossible and unequivocally deadly. He didn't panic about things like that these days.

Presently Cecil joined him on the bench. Sitting at a polite distance, hands folded in his lap, he said, "Can I ask what you're up to?"

"Right now?" said Carlos. "Not emailing the National Ocean Service about how the ocean here is soon going to be coated with a thick layer of zombie matter, blocking out essential sunlight and devastating the marine ecosystem."

"Huh," said Cecil. "Why not?"

"First, because it's a prediction based on solid scientific observation, which this place tends to treat as optional. And second...because the Internet connection is out again."

"Ah."

They sat in silence for a while, listening to the waves.

It was surprisingly comfortable. Carlos had never been around anyone who, well, _admired_ him with so much enthusiasm; but while Cecil's mouth seemed to have no filter, the rest of him was as restrained as Carlos could have asked for. Even during the shower incident, the nearly-naked Cecil hadn't done a thing to impose himself on Carlos' attention.

(The attention Carlos had been paying was entirely on his own initiative.)

"I used to hate how impossible this part of the sea was being," he said. "Then I started to think it could be a good thing. You could hit that site with pretty much anything, and that reef, those fish, the seals, the creature that sings, they would come through it just fine. When you're worried about your own mortality, it's kind of comforting to know that at least there's one thing you can count on."

Cecil nodded. "I know what you mean."

The sun was far across the sky, gleaming behind the edge of a low cloud. It would be setting soon.

"If you have all the data you need, we should be getting back to the lab," said Carlos. Part of him wanted to stay at the pier much longer...maybe watch the stars come out...but he was supposed to be the leader of this little project, and a project head is disciplined. That's the first thing a project head is.

"Oh!" said Cecil. "Yes, sure. Of course."

While he was winding up the cable of the hydrophone, Carlos added, "Cecil?"

"Yes?...Carlos?"

Disciplined, Carlos told himself. Keep it professional. "Thanks. For bringing me out here."

Cecil beamed like Carlos had just given him the moon. "Carlos, I would come out here with you any time."


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On the last day before Seacil's time on land runs out, both he and Carlos learn a few things about getting burned.

On the morning of his third day as a human, Seacil decided to make Carlos breakfast.

He'd never tried human cooking before, but there were detailed directions on the side of the box of "corn muffin mix", and between the fridge and the sparse cupboards he found containers with all the ingredients it mentioned. How hard could it be? It didn't even call for any kelp. Or kelp by-products.

He did have to resist the urge to add extra salt. It improved the taste of water, and everything else, as far as Seacil was concerned, but Carlos was used to low levels of salinity — what a great science word, huh? — and might not appreciate the improvisation.

Seacil hummed to himself as he mixed the ingredients together. Over the past few days he'd learned so much about Carlos! Not only was there the salt thing, there was the mussed-hair-in-the-mornings thing, and the self-consciousness Carlos always carried under the surface but could shed if he was engrossed in explaining something, and the way his beautiful eyes lit up when he made a discovery, and the fact that when he was in the lab he always wore these important-looking white coats.

Granted, some of the discoveries were less enrapturing than others (was it _really_ necessary for him to chew quite that loudly?). But Seacil loved him all the more because of and/or in spite of every detail.

And Carlos definitely seemed to like Seacil so far, too. Sure, the deadline for a kiss was coming up fast, but Seacil had a good feeling about it. Especially if he got these muffins right.

 

~~~

 

Carlos only made coffee for one that morning. He would have (reluctantly) brewed more if Cecil had asked, but thankfully Cecil seemed content with orange juice. (With a generous helping of sugar. That had to be sugar, right?)

The caffeine was just starting to kick in when the oven beeped.

"I got it!" exclaimed Cecil, jumping to his feet. Today he was in one of Carlos' green-and-beige flannel shirts, over khaki shorts. His own clothes were supposed to arrive some time this evening, and Carlos wondered if they'd all be as weird as the rope-and-canvas ensemble, and whether they would make Cecil look as good as he did now....

He realized, too late to stop it, that Cecil was about to take the muffin tray out of the oven bare-handed.

The tray fell back onto the rack with a clang as Cecil let it go, crying out and shaking his hand in the air. Carlos was up in an instant, dashing to the sink. "Cecil, over here!" he said, hitting the water on and flicking his hand under the faucet to make sure it was running cool. "Get some cold water on it, come here."

Cecil stumbled over to join him: shaking, breathing hard, too panicked to respond. Without thinking about it, Carlos took his wrist, guiding his fingers into the stream. The searing metal had left angry red blotches on his skin, largest on his thumb and up the side of his index finger.

"What were you thinking?" demanded Carlos. "We have oven mitts in the drawer. You didn't have to burn yourself."

"I...I didn't...." Cecil swallowed. "I've never been _burned_ before."

Carlos wondered briefly if Cecil's culture had some kind of taboo against stoves. "Well, you got lucky. It's only first-degree. I'll show you how to wrap it up, and if you go easy on it for a while it should heal fine."

"Are you sure?" asked Cecil faintly.

"I'm a chemist, remember? We know our way around burns."

Once Cecil seemed steady enough to hold his hand in place unaided, Carlos went to get the first aid kit, switching off the oven along the way. The cool water kept down any swelling, and it didn't look like Cecil's skin was blistering, but it couldn't hurt to protect the area for a while. He ended up wrapping a light layer of sterile gauze around each burn, distracting Cecil from the pain by pointing out some souvenirs of his own mishaps.

"This one was a burn too," he said of the darkened, slightly tight patch of skin on the inside of his forearm. "Got splashed with some chemicals in the lab sophomore year. I was wearing gloves, but as you can see, they only went up so high. And then there's these." He opened his other hand to point out a couple of whitish lines: two on different fingers, one across his palm. "Sliced myself open on a shattered Erlenmeyer flask. The long one needed stitches."

"Wow," said Cecil, in his deep, solemn voice. "I never knew science could be so hazardous." He ran one non-burned finger over the line that crossed Carlos' hand.

Carlos drew back in a hurry, closing his hand into a fist to keep it from doing something terribly unprofessional. "Well, now you know!" he stammered. "Sorry, I guess this gets in the way of your whole 'perfect Carlos' image...."

He'd tried to say it lightly, but Cecil didn't let him get away with it. "Not at all!" he exclaimed, pale eyes widening in earnest. "Carlos — sweet, modest Carlos — if anything, your rugged devotion to the cause of science makes you more perfect than ever."

Carlos was in _so_ much trouble. "S-speaking of science! I should, ah, get back to that. Promptly! So much to study, so little time!"

Cecil's face fell. "Don't you want one of these muffins first?"

How could Carlos fail to honor Cecil's rugged devotion to the cause of baking? "I'll have it in the office," he decided, popping a corn muffin out of the now-cooled tin and using a saucer to serve as a mini-plate. "Of course the lab is a no-food-or-drink zone! But I have to work on some spreadsheets. And check my email."

 

~~~

 

Seacil was walking on air. He was on top of the world. He was over the moon. He was, figuratively, all kinds of places involving extreme lightness and/or very high escape velocity.

He was literally in the kitchenette sprinkling extra salt on his muffin, but he was doing it with overwhelming joy.

It lasted until he went downstairs.

Carlos was waiting at the foot of the steps. His lab coat billowed out imposingly behind his legs. The light from the overhead fluorescents flashed in sharp lines over the lenses of his glasses. He wasn't smiling.

"Who are you?" he demanded.

Seacil stopped in his tracks, non-burned hand gripping the railing.

"The university got back to me," said Carlos. "They didn't send any Cecil Baldwin to join the project. They don't know of any Cecil Baldwins. They don't have any Baldwins on record at all."

"Oh," said Seacil.

"Tell me you're with another university." Carlos' hands were clenched into fists. "One that will recognize your name when I call them. Tell me you're here through Strexcorp, and if I look through the equipment rental agreement more closely I'll find the clause that said you might show up. Tell me _something_."

Mutely, Seacil shook his head.

"Because you didn't just latch on to me at random," continued Carlos. "You knew my name on sight. You knew which boat the project had been using. You know enough about hydroacoustics to be a genuine researcher, or at least to pass for one. So why here? Why with me?"

"I just wanted to see you!" Seacil had found his voice again, although how he was going to make it fix this was still an open question. "To spend time with you. To ask you things, and listen to your perfect caramel voice as you answered. I've wanted it since the day I first saw you."

"Then you could have asked me out for coffee!" cried Carlos. "Instead you put me through this whole charade! For two days and nights you've been working with my equipment, eating my food, wearing my _clothes_...."

Seacil grabbed the hem of his borrowed shirt, tugging it out of his waistband. "Do you want them back?"

"I want you to leave!"

Seacil froze.

"I could call the police," said Carlos. "But you did help with the audio equipment...and you baked...so I'll give you one chance. Plus the outfit. You can keep the outfit, okay? Just walk out of here, quietly, right now, and I'll agree to forget that any of this ever happened."

 

~~~

 

The next two genuine, university-sent researchers arrived later that afternoon. Both of them had ID. And suitcases. And brought their own lab coats.

Wei Ling was another chemist, looking to do some analysis involving the region's boron isotopes. Arnold was a hydrometeorologist, which in his case was a long way of saying that he studied ocean-born storms. Carlos had spent the past few hours rounding up the data and samples they could use, and placing last-minute orders for any new equipment they would need.

(At the station where Cecil had been set up, he found a copy of his own book, still open to the page on Baldwin's rules. So even Cecil's name had been a lie.)

"I should warn you, this area's been described as 'scientifically interesting', but it would be better described as 'scientifically impossible'," he said as he helped them get their luggage to their rooms. "Be prepared to get results you don't understand, and can't make sense of, and should be in mortal danger from."

"Oh, I get those all the time," said Wei Ling cheerfully. "That's why you test and re-test. Eventually the human error averages out."

"And storms are always dangerous," added Arnold. "As I'm sure you know by this point."

Carlos tried not to bang his head against the nearest wall. They would learn, he told himself. Give them a couple weeks.

(Even then, though, he probably wouldn't be able to talk to them as easily as he had to Cecil....)

"Speaking of which, very sorry to hear about your last team," said Wei Ling. "I hope it hasn't been too lonely out here. Hey, are those muffins?"

"No," said Carlos. "I mean, no, it hasn't been lonely. Yes, those are muffins. Help yourselves."

(Would Cecil be able to get something to eat tonight? Did he even have a place to go?)

Wei Ling went straight for a muffin. Arnold held back. "What are they made with? I'm gluten intolerant."

"I don't know," admitted Carlos. _I didn't make them._ "Let me see if I can find the box. I can tell you, though, you're going to have an easy time in the rest of this town. Can't seem to get wheat products for love or money."

(There was so much he didn't understand about Ocean Bluffs. Just like there was so much he didn't understand about Cecil. But with Cecil, if he'd asked, maybe he could have found out.)

He fished the box out of the recycling and handed it to Arnold. "Will you two excuse me for a while? I need to step out. There's something I have to check on."

(A scientist is endlessly curious, and never stops in the search for truth. That's the first thing a scientist is.)

 

~~~

 

The view off the pier was stunning. Orange and purple clouds made a halo around the sun as it sank towards the horizon, casting a long gold column of light across the waves.

Seacil sat on the end of it, leaning on a crossbeam of the railing, his two legs sticking out and dangling over the edge. For as long as he still had them, it was as good a place as any to put them.

The water lapped against wooden columns below his feet, with an extra splash every so often when a multi-eyed angelfish jumped out. Old Merwoman Josie had been kind enough to send them over to check up on him. One had even flown up to the level of the pier and delivered a package, courtesy of Big Ray's; it was some small comfort that he knew he'd have sympathetic fins to lean on when he got back into town.

But only small comfort.

He'd lost. He'd had his chance, a perfectly good chance, and he'd blown it. And it wasn't like he could renew or redo the spell; it was a once-in-a-lifetime thing, no matter how many eels he sacrificed. Not that Carlos would care to speak to him again, even if he managed to stay in human form for a year....

"Cecil?"

Seacil sat bolt upright. On the otherwise-empty pier behind him, the figure of Carlos stood silhouetted against the town skyline. His lab coat fluttered in the breeze off the sea.

"I've been trying to find you," said Carlos uncertainly. "I checked the Arby's, and down by the docks...I didn't know where else to look but here."

"Well," said Seacil, heart (figuratively) in his mouth. "Here I am."

"Here you are," echoed Carlos. "Do you have somewhere to go, after this?"

If Seacil lied, would Carlos invite him back to the lab? But no, Carlos deserved as much truth as Seacil could give him. "I guess...tonight I'm going home."

"I'm glad." Carlos came closer, hands stuffed in his pockets. "I was hoping you'd...is that sushi?"

Seacil glanced down at his remaining rolls of seaweed-wrapped fish. "A gift from Big Ray's."

"Haven't heard of that place."

"No one does a roll like Big Ray's," said Seacil. He was trying to use his advertising voice, but it came out more like a lament. "No one."

Carlos leaned against the railing a few feet down from him. Their shadows stretched endlessly back along the planks. "I want to understand you, Cecil," he said quietly. "It would be easy if you were something simple and...malevolent, but I've been trying to believe that, and I can't. You seem too pure. Too innocent. So where did you come from? Why did you do it? Help me understand."

"All I wanted was for you to like me." Seacil cupped one hand over the still-wrapped burns of the other. "I'm so sorry, dear Carlos. I can't tell you anything else."

 _Emotions you don't understand upon viewing the sunset_ was one of the things that could make the spell permanent. But Seacil understood his emotions all too well. Frustration. Regret. The pain of seeing his last hopes fade away. And love, deep as ever, burning him from the inside out.

 

~~~

 

"I do," said Carlos, almost without thinking about it.

Cecil's pearly eyes were hard to read, but somehow it seemed like the words only made him sadder.

"Like you. I do like you," Carlos clarified. "I don't trust you — not right now — but I wanted to think that maybe I could. That at least I had to give you one more chance to come clean."

And if Cecil's explanation was really, really good, Carlos just might ask him out for coffee.

Before responding, Cecil got to his feet and scanned the pier, then the white sand that stretched off from either side of it. "Nobody else here," he said, as if to himself. "All right. Stay with me, Carlos? It won't be much longer."

Carlos nodded. "How much longer to what?"

Instead of answering, Cecil started unbuttoning his (well, Carlos's) shirt.

Carlos willed himself not to start blushing. It wasn't like Cecil's bare torso was anything he hadn't seen before. And again, it wasn't as if Cecil was trying to seduce him into compliance; he was just methodically stripping, making a neat pile of the shirt, the sandals, the rolled-up gauze peeled from his hand, and, finally, the shorts.

If he'd started to take off the navy-blue boxers, Carlos would have said something. Definitely.

But that was the point when Cecil's breath hitched.

Carlos tensed, ready in spite of everything to catch him if he was having some kind of attack.

The last sliver of sun sank below the horizon.

And in the fading gold light Cecil's skin started to turn purple.

It wasn't that he was choking. He was taking steady gasps of air as the hue came in across his whole torso, turning it a mottled dark purple. The color flushed down his arms, where a bluish webbing was growing into place between the purpling fingers. His legs were buckling. His legs....

Not only were they bent at the knees, they were bent at places where legs weren't supposed to bend. They bulged; they twisted; they each split apart into three separate appendages, all swelling, ripping the seams of the boxers as his pelvis ballooned to accommodate six evenly-spaced limbs.

Six _tentacles_. Purple where they joined, shading almost to black as you went down, with pale undersides and two rows of even-paler lavender suckers running along each.

"You're the octopus," breathed Carlos.

(The sextopus? No, he still had both arms, which added up to eight limbs total.)

The full force of the transformation had passed. Cecil, relatively stable on curled tentacles that held him up to Carlos' height, offered Carlos a sad smile, in which Carlos saw the last physical change: flat human teeth morphing into the serrated points of a shark. "Is that what you thought I was?"

His voice. It was different now. Accented, almost burbly, as if spoken underwater. "And you're the one I heard!" exclaimed Carlos, stepping forward, trying to avoid treading on one of the slender, undulating ends of the tentacles. "You spoke underwater — you sang to me — that was you too, wasn't it? You saved my life!"

"How could I not?" asked Cecil. "It goes against all kinds of municipal secrecy laws — but it was you! Perfect Carlos — I fell in love with you the moment I first saw you." He paused. "Maybe not quite that fast. But I was definitely in love by the time I first saw your perfect hair."

"Cecil...."

"It's _Seacil_ ," said the octopus-merman, with what might have been a pout.

This time Carlos could hear the difference in pronunciation, even if he wasn't sure he could mimic it. "I wanted to see you too," he said instead. "If I'd known...this is magic, isn't it? The kind of spell where it has a built-in time limit, unless...?"

Seacil nodded. "Unless."

So Carlos stepped over the curve of a tentacle, cupped Seacil's face in his hands, and pressed a kiss to his lips.

Just one. Just softly. (He was wary about those teeth.)

He pulled back to find tears pooling in Seacil's eyes. "Sweet Carlos. You're too late."

Carlos set his jaw. "I wanted to do it anyway."

 

~~~

 

Of course Seacil went for a second kiss. How could he not? Stronger wills than his would have crumbled under that kind of temptation.

He wrapped his own hands around the curve of Carlos' skull, webbed fingers tangling as deeply as they could in that perfect thick dark hair, and looped a tentacle across the small of Carlos' back to hold him in place. That touch made Carlos jump, so Seacil resisted the urge to wrap every one of his limbs around the man's body.

"This doesn't have to be the end," panted Carlos between kisses. "We can still meet. I'll get another boat, bring it out on the water...you can come up to the surface, I'll show you what I'm working on...I can dive —"

"We can't," said Seacil. "I'm going to be in so much trouble already. Carlos, dear Carlos, this has to be it."

"Can I still come out there? Will you get in trouble if I keep studying your home?"

"No, that would be great! Please do. I'll be watching you every minute."

Carlos smoothed back one of Seacil's glossy black locks. "It's okay if it isn't _every_ minute...."

"Oh, but it will be," said Seacil with confidence. "I'm a reporter. My job — assuming I still have it — is to know everything that goes on in our sleepy little community. Or, in your boat's case, above it." He kissed the line of Carlos' jaw. "You'll trust that I'm there, right? You won't be hurt that I can't show myself to you?"

"A scientist is self-reliant," began Carlos, then shook himself and started over. "I mean...yes, I'll trust you. Even though I'm going to miss you like crazy."

It was, at this point, the happiest thing Seacil could have hoped for.

Unwinding his limbs from Carlos was the hardest thing he'd ever done. "I have to go now," he said softly. "I'm sorry. I love you."

He clambered over the railing, careful not to crush it with his newly-restored full weight, and clung with dozens of suckers to the outermost edge of the platform. With Carlos still on the other side, he leaned back for one last kiss in the darkening twilight.

Then Seacil dove.

 

~~~

 

(And now...[the weather](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqPGybTzXb4).)

 

~~~

 

Carlos didn't know how long he stood there, watching the ocean deepen to black as a crescent moon sailed into view overhead.

He couldn't have known. There was no way. Especially with _magic_ , of all the scientific impossibilities, at the heart of everything that had happened.

That didn't stop glass shards of regret from filling his chest.

It would have been so easy to avoid this. Between meeting Seacil and losing faith in him, there were so many moments when he could have gone for a kiss. If he'd given in to temptation once — just once! — then Seacil would be in his arms right now. Telling him everything. Helping him unravel the local mysteries that science couldn't even touch. _Loving_ him.

"And I could have loved him back!" yelled Carlos into the gloom. "If I had just one more chance...!"

Useless. Hopeless. He was screaming impotently at an indifferent moon.

That was when the shadow fell across him.

It was towering, dark, and didn't seem to care that it was stretching in the wrong direction. When Carlos turned, he found it was being cast by an impossible wall of stone: rough to the touch and weathered, but carved with solemn patterns uneroded by age. Vaulted windows appeared high on its sides. Higher still, the top cut a crenellated silhouette into the starry sky.

THE BROWNSTONE SPIRE had found him.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With both of their lives changed forever, Seacil and Carlos each find their way home.

I...

I'm back.

This may come as a shock to some of you. Not only did I leave our little town with every intention of never being able to come back, but I was not expecting to have a position still waiting if indeed I did return. However, thanks to the intrepid fill-in work from Intern Dory broadcasting live from Dogfish Cove, as well as all of your kind tweets, chirps, clicks, and burbles to Station Management on my behalf, I find myself addressing you once more.

A special thanks to Old Merwoman Josie for bringing over some crab cakes. You all may remember that, some time ago, she reported that her angelfish friends took her salt. Well, it turns out low-sodium baked goods are just what I need while I adjust back to life at home.

It has been a very long three days, dear listeners. I don't really feel like talking about it right now. Suffice to say that I am fine, and perfect Carlos is also fine. Fate...did not see fit to bring us together. It happens. Not much else to say about that.

Although if anyone happens to run across Carlos' glasses, ID, or left shoe, which he lost in the ocean during the storm a few days ago, please bring them down to the station grotto. I need them for...science purposes.

And now, lost and heartbroken, alone in a vast cold ocean that cares nothing for our tiny, fragile hearts, let's — let's go t-to traffic —

— sorry, listeners, but there's some very rude person outside, trying to interrupt the broadcast. Please enjoy this pre-recorded ad while I go tell them off. What do you want to bet it's Steve Cuttlesberg? This is just the kind of thing he would do. What a jerk.

 

~~~

 

The stuck-in-place catfish with the fangs and the hellish glare looked up as the visitor approached, and snarled.

"Hey, little guy. Remember me?"

A webbed hand skritched under the whiskered chin. The snarling faded.

"You're just a big ol' sweetheart after all, aren't you?"

Koishekh started to purr.

 

~~~

 

Seacil flounced out to the front, ready to give the intruder a piece of his mind.

How dare anyone interrupt the only meaningful thing he had left in the world? Even if the visitor was from the Sheriff's secret police, he wasn't going to stand for it. His re-education hearing wasn't until tomorrow, and he had every intention of showing up on time; they didn't have a single thing on him.

It wasn't the Sheriff's secret police.

The stranger at the door was a merman Seacil had never seen before. He had spiny fins at his sides, and a more delicate, almost translucent fan of them at the end of his tail. His body was burnt-umber with lionfish stripes of cream and orange, their pattern even extending up across his face.

His very familiar face.

Surrounded by a billowing cloud of familiar, _perfect_ hair.

" _Carlos?_ "

Carlos-the-mermaid ducked his head and waved. "Hi, Seacil."

"But — what — how —?"

"It's a confusing story," said Carlos sheepishly, in fluent, un-accented Mermish. "I, ah, don't suppose you've heard of a thing called THE BROWNSTONE SPIRE?"

The water around them shook with the reverb.

"Of course I have!" exclaimed Seacil. "But help from THE BROWNSTONE SPIRE costs...things, Carlos! What price did you have to pay?"

"The price to spend the rest of my life here? To be able to study this place from within, to work directly with the people who live here...and to be with, well, you?" Carlos shrugged. "It already means giving up everything else I've ever known. Apparently that was enough."

Seacil was too overwhelmed to speak. It was too much. He couldn't imagine what he'd done to deserve being this lucky.

"It's not that I want to impose!" said Carlos quickly. "You can take your time and think this over! If you don't do anything, the whole transformation is set to reverse itself automatically in three days...so you don't have to, to, to kiss me before that if you're not sure...."

All of Seacil's tentacles flexed at once as he jetted through the water, threw himself into Carlos' arms, and kissed him hard enough to draw blood.

 

~~~

 

_Epilogue._

Carlos didn't have any trouble getting to know people. It helped that everyone recognized him right away when he was out with Seacil (whom he had not realized was something of a local celebrity). Most of them couldn't get their voices around his Humanish name; eventually he got used to answering to things like Charlos, Codlos, and Carplos.

There was endless science to be done. He had to teach himself new fields from the ground up. (Some of them were fields he wasn't even sure existed outside this part of the ocean.) It was the most fun he'd had in years.

The workings of his own no-longer-human body were his longest-running experiment. Motion with fins had to be practiced. He learned how to take caution with his poisonous spines. (Seacil _loved_ his poisonous spines.) And between him and Seacil, they were never going to get tired of thinking up new tests involving his reactions to tentacles.

Although Seacil's salary was enough to support them both, the more Carlos got settled in, the more he wanted to pull his own weight. One thing led to another, and soon he found himself working out a science curriculum for the local high school, including experiments designed for a population of teenagers with anywhere from zero to ten limbs.

Seacil always came with him to PTA meetings. Partly for reporting purposes, partly to HAIL THE GLOW BLOOM (which was now PTA president), and mostly to complain that Steve Cuttlesberg had brought unacceptably stringy shrimp.

Then, at the end of the day, they always went home together.

Like most fish, Carlos didn't need to sleep. Sometimes he did it anyway, resting his head on Seacil's shoulder and floating in place while his consciousness slipped away. Other times he reveled in the ability to stay up working all night. Seacil slept regularly, and Carlos rarely got too absorbed in a project to stop and smile when a dream made the other mer-creature's tentacles twitch and sent different hues shifting across his skin.

They stayed a safe distance away from Dogfish Cove, except when throwing food for Intern Dory. They kept on top of all city-mandated greetings, permits, and forbidden foodstuffs. They paid proper respects to the Great Old One sleeping in Radon Trench, and sometimes helped Old Merwoman Josie carry groceries.

In short: they lived weirdly, scientifically-improbably, and happily ever after.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Masterlist of art:  
> \+ [Seacil pining from the rocks](http://crystalice96.deviantart.com/art/Pining-for-Love-2-398185082) by crystalice96 (atomicmuffin)  
> \+ [Human Seacil](http://sailorptah.deviantart.com/art/Part-Of-Your-World-398191035) (in one of Carlos' shirts)  
> \+ [With His Perfect Fins](http://sailorptah.deviantart.com/art/With-His-Perfect-Fins-399995682) (mer-creatures in love)
> 
> This story fills the "Fusion - Any" square on [my Longfic Bingo card](http://ptahrrific.dreamwidth.org/184463.html).
> 
> If you're interested, I do have [a blog](http://erinptah.com/), which posts about various fannish and IRL things...including the rest of my [art](http://sailorptah.deviantart.com/), [mixes](http://8tracks.com/sailorptah), and [fanfiction](http://ptahrrific.dreamwidth.org/). It also features [fic recs](http://erinptah.wordpress.com/category/recommendations/) (which I can already tell are going to be Night Vale-dominated for the next few weeks).
> 
> Next on the WTNV writing agenda: a His Dark Materials crossover, and a family reunion story. Thanks for reading, everyone, and stick around!


End file.
